


who gives a damn about the family you come from?

by tempestaurora



Series: wayward sons [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Family Bonding, Gen, Harley Keener is a Good Bro, Instagram, No plot just fluff, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Peter says Fuck, Rated teen for language, Social Media, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-18 20:17:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16523912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tempestaurora/pseuds/tempestaurora
Summary: It started with a harmless Instagram story on Peter's account. Then Tony Stark reposted it. Then Peter Parker's account blew up.Harley Keener's there because he likes to watch the world burn.AKA the social media au we need in these trying times





	who gives a damn about the family you come from?

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is in a series because i'm considering continuing this in future (most likely after whumpvember) - but if you want to stay updated with this story, you can bookmark and subscribe to the series! 
> 
> i had a lot of fun writing this so i hope you enjoy reading it! i really love writing harley and peter together & i made a few notes in the end notes so you guys can have a little more info on a few things
> 
> anyway, enjoy!

It started with a harmless Instagram story.

The camera was shaky, cutting across the table in front of Peter, covered in dice and notebooks and a large, printed map with miniature figurines positioned carefully in the battle field. It moved to Tony Stark, the DM screen piled on the table, forgotten, his smile wide as he rolled a twenty-sided die, legs crossed on the chair on which he sat.

Tony laughed, once. “Nat 20. Harley, my boy, does a _nat 20_ hit?”

The camera moved to Harley, sitting directly opposite Peter. He rolled his eyes, grumbling. “Of course a _nat 20_ hits. Don’t bother rolling damage. I’m down.”

As Harley picked up his pencil, Peter said, “Shit – am I the only one left standing?”

“No,” Tony replied. “Shmaptain Shmamerica is still standing too. And he says _Language!_ at your swearing.”

The camera cut out as they started to laugh, and Peter posted it to his story, tagged with _Tony Stark set an Iron Golem on our baby level three adventurers and is surprised that we’re dying._

Two hours later, when the session was left on a cliff hanger, the battle behind them and Harley’s character, the Half Orc Fighter Aerelm, barely surviving after a few brutal hits, Tony scrolled across Peter’s Instagram. He wasn’t following the kid, but occasionally checked up on it to see what photos Peter was posting from practically impossible angles. Being Spiderman meant he could climb to the highest of skyscrapers to take photos of the sunset, and Peter’s ten thousand followers he’d gained on the back of it was nothing to scoff at.

Tony laughed when he watched the video and paused for only a moment before sharing it on his Insta story. He then followed Peter, for good measure, because why not.

 

-

 

Peter choked when he saw his Instagram followers hit 100k by dinner.

“What the fuck,” he muttered, scrolling through his notifications and promptly turning them off. The follows were still coming in, one after another, and Peter’s phone screen was lighting up with each new account.

“What?” Harley asked, peering over Peter’s shoulder. The two of them met through Tony and had quickly formed a friendship outside of their mentor. Tony was ecstatic when he found out that the two boys he’d taken under his wing had developed a fast friendship, and even more so when they asked Tony if he wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons with them. That started a whole _thing_. A fortnightly thing, to be exact, in which Peter’s friends Ned and MJ would come to Stark Tower and Tony would take them on an adventure that he’d been writing for far too long, and the five of them would talk in funny accents and laugh for four hours straight.

“Look at this,” Peter said, showing Harley the screen. “Why are people following me? This is ridiculous.”

Harley snorted, taking Peter’s phone and clicking through the screens. “Easy, Pete. Tony followed you. And reposted your story – did you even _try_ to figure it out? I mean, it’s right there.”

“Mr Stark followed me?”

“Yeah, and he only follows like nine people.”

“Are you one of them?”

Harley raised an eyebrow. “Of course I’m one of them, get with the programme. Now let’s use your new-found fame for good and film Tony talking to DUM-E like the bot’s his child.”

So, they did, and Peter posted it, captioned with _mr stark’s first born son_ and watched in awe as the comments flooded in.

Eventually, Tony seemed to realise Peter had posted about him and had found the two boys on the sofa, a movie playing quietly as they scribbled out their homework in rough chicken scratch. Harley had only moved to Midtown recently; he’d left Tennessee for New York upon his mother’s frank discussion with Tony Stark about Harley’s potential and the best place for him, and Tony had taken over temporary guardianship and enrolled him in some private school in Manhattan. Harley hadn’t liked it, but it wasn’t until he and Peter had become friends that Tony had considered Midtown.

Now, the two of them, Ned and MJ were some weird, unbreakable group that roamed the halls together, decidedly at the bottom of the food chain, but happy all the same.

Tony took one look at the boys, turned his phone so they could see the video playing on mute (Tony smiling at DUM-E as he fixed a broken wheel, DUM-E beeping enthusiastically and Tony replying _yeah yeah, I love you too, but if you keep acting like a moron I’ll donate you to a homeless shelter, you know that, right?_ ) and said, “Your older brother isn’t amused about his image being online.”

Peter snorted and Harley barked out a laugh.

“I don’t want my children fighting, okay?” Tony added, before promptly walking from the room.

 

-

 

At school, Flash cornered Peter in a rare moment where he wasn’t flanked by his friends. Flash Thompson held no care in his heart for Peter Parker or Ned Leeds, but Michelle Jones had a cold, hard way of looking straight into his soul and saying _Eugene_ with the most indifference he’d ever heard, and Harley Keener, the new kid, was the Southern kind of rude, in which he put a smile on his face as he called Flash words that even _Flash Thompson_ wouldn’t repeat.

(Harley Keener was also the one who’d pulled Flash by his collar off Peter on his third day of school and slammed his fist into Flash’s face with zero preamble (hard enough to bruise for the next week). He’d also vanished before he could get in trouble, and considering how Flash had started the whole thing, he’d elected not to tell the teachers.)

“Parker,” Flash barked when he reached Peter at his locker. Peter sighed, his shoulders slumping down as he pulled a textbook and shoved it into his backpack.

“What do you want?” he asked, not looking over his shoulder. A moment later, Peter shut the locker and turned to Flash.

“Tony Stark is following you on Instagram.”

“Correct,” Peter replied.

Flash floundered for a moment, as if he’d thought Peter would refute the truth. Then he bit out, “He reposted your Insta story.”

“That’s two for two,” Peter agreed. Harley and Peter had almost immediate influences on each other. Harley, despite his intelligence, was plain lazy when it came to school work. He could pass by in the exams without having to study, but with Peter around, he always found himself doing it anyway. In kind, Peter was picking up Harley’s confidence and an edge of his attitude. Flash Thompson had certainly noticed it.

“Listen, Parker-” Flash was _this close_ to slamming Peter into the locker, packed hallway be damned, when a body appeared on his right.

“Hey, Thompson,” Harley greeted. Peter felt himself relax a little as Flash jerked back.

“Keener.”

“Good talk,” Harley replied, placing a hand on Peter’s shoulder and driving him away from where Flash Thompson stood. Peter smiled, relieved, and then looked over to Harley, who was almost a head taller than him.

“He’s still freaked out from that time you punched him,” Peter said.

Harley grinned. “Don’t you know it. Mama taught me to punch good.”

Peter laughed and Harley swung an arm around his shoulders, leading them both to class.

 

-

 

It was on Tony’s Instagram next, cross posted to his Twitter.

The photo was of Peter and Harley in the lab, Peter sitting cross-legged on the floor as he tinkered with a circuit board – a small part to the larger project that was dissembled in pieces in front of him – and Harley sitting on a stool, leaning over the desk that Peter sat in front of, fingers flying across a keyboard, a holo screen lit up before him. In the picture also was DUM-E, arm leaning over Peter’s shoulder, holding a tool that Peter had asked him to look after.

No one in the photo seemed to realise that Tony was taking it and maybe that’s why Tony liked it so much – they were absorbed in their work, just enjoying their time in the state-of-the-art lab that Tony had given them a whole section to.

The caption read: _the kids all in one place_ , and he tagged Harley and Peter in the image, as if the world really needed the help.

Tony expected the storm that came after posting it, so he wasn’t taken off guard. Instead of reading the comments, he simply locked his phone and rolled his stool over to where the boys sat, and Peter automatically started up a conversation, despite being engrossed in his work.

 

-

 

_TONY STARK HAS KIDS_

_THE SONS OF IRON MAN_

_WHO ARE TONY STARK’S CHILDREN?_

Peter snorted at the headlines then shoved the tablet across the breakfast table to Harley. As Harley scrolled through them, Peter fired off a text to May to say good morning, that he’d be home that evening.

 

**_MAY:_ ** _Have you seen the news? There’s photos of you everywhere._

**_PETER:_ ** _yh but it’ll be fine may, mr stark said it’ll blow over_

**_MAY:_ ** _Tony’s the one who released the photos._

**_PETER:_ ** _technically I did first like I haven’t ever been quiet about knowing him_

**_MAY:_ ** _True. You are a little obsessed._

**_PETER:_ ** _a little????? i was iron man for halloween three years in a row. obsessed is far behind me._

“Morning boys,” Pepper greeted as she walked into the kitchen. Peter slipped his phone back on the table, sending her a _hello_. Harley mumbled something through a mouth filled with cereal and Pepper soon joined them at the table, peering at the tablet that Harley was reading.

“We’ll sort it out,” she promised, and Peter had half a mind to believe her, with how sincere her voice sounded. “You’re both interns, we’ll say as much. People may follow you around for a little while, but they’ll get bored sooner or later.”

“Not if Tony keeps calling us his sons,” Harley replied, though Peter could hear the smile in his voice.

Pepper scoffed. “Well that’s not going to happen anytime soon. I asked him last night if he’d adopted you when I wasn’t looking.”

Peter grinned. “If he adopted us, would you be our step mom?”

Pepper’s smile was wide. “I’d be the best damn step mom you boys could ask for.”

 

-

 

Peter smiled as he swung his legs out over the ledge of a building, settling in as Karen monitored police frequencies in one ear and his friends bickered good-naturedly in the other.

“I’m just saying,” Ned insisted, “Bruce Banner is totally in hiding.”

“He’s not,” Harley groaned for what must’ve been the fourth time. “Someone would’ve _seen him_.”

“He’s in hiding!” Ned cried. “No one would see him!”

“Consider this rationally for one minute,” Harley replied. This talk was originally supposed to be about their homework and Decathlon practice (which was why MJ had even been added to the conference call). It had long since devolved into something else entirely. “Bruce Banner is the Hulk and stuck on a quinjet in Sokovia. The quinjet fucking flies into space. Therefore, Bruce Banner is in space.”

“Sound reasoning,” Peter agreed.

“There seems to be a car chase on 31st,” Karen said.

“Thanks, Karen,” Peter replied, climbing to his feet and leaping off the roof.

“It _is_ sound reasoning,” Harley said. “Thank you, Peter. I knew I kept you around for a reason.”

“If Hulk was dead, we’d know about it,” Ned continued, as if no one else had spoken. “Like, there would’ve been a funeral-”

“-Not if he’s MIA-”

“- people would’ve said _Oh, Bruce Banner is dead or missing or whatever._ But they didn’t! They just haven’t talked about him since 2015!”

Peter rolled his eyes, talking a sharp right and whooping as a few guys on the street call up to him. Peter flipped in the air and rook a left. The sirens were getting closer.

“God, you guys are losers,” MJ muttered across the line. Peter had no idea why she hadn’t hung up yet. Maybe it was just what you had to put up with when you’re in a friendship group; fucking stupid ass conversations in the group chat.

“I bet he’s in space,” Harley said. “And you know who else has been suspiciously MIA since Sokovia? Thor. Bruce Banner and Thor. Chilling in space. That’s where I’m putting my money.”

“You have no money,” Peter commented, shooting a web to catch him as he plummeted towards the street. He swung up, soaring through the air.

“Excuse you, my dad’s a billionaire,” Harley replied.

“Excuse _you_ ,” Peter retorted, “scratchers never have a billion dollars on them, _especially_ 7-Eleven ones. At most, your dad’s a millionaire.”

He heard a snort over the line. “Cold, Peter,” Ned told him.

“Man and I thought you were on my side,” Harley agreed, but Peter could hear the fake melodrama in his voice. “I’m gonna tell Dad you said that about me. He’s gonna ground you.”

“Mr Stark can’t ground me,” Peter replied.

“Tony has grounded you before,” Harley corrected. “He grounds Spiderman. Same thing.”

Peter was coming up on the cars now – he saw them flying through the street, swerving as they raced around the corner. A stark white sports car, shining pink under New York’s neon lights. There was gunfire coming from the car, and then from the three police cars following close behind.

“Guys, I’m gonna put you on mute,” Peter said, clinging to the side of a building. The car was closing in. “I’ve got duties to attend to.”

“Good luck Spider-Dork,” MJ said, and then the line disappeared to a small icon in the top corner of his display.

“Good luck, Peter,” Karen agreed, before Peter leapt from the wall and landed hard on the roof of the car. A small dent appeared beneath his feet, which was a shame because it _was_ a really nice car.

He caught the gun that was shooting from the passenger window and chucked it lightly onto the sidewalk.

“Sorry, dude,” Peter said, wrenching the passenger side door open, “this isn’t an open carry state. You need to conceal that thing in future, alright?”

The guy flung a fist out towards him and Peter dodged without any trouble. He let the guy throw a few more before noticing the lack of seatbelt and grabbing his fist, pulling him from the car and letting him roll across the street. Peter shot a web at his foot, sticking him to the ground, then jumped into the car, shutting the door behind him.

“You guys are on Uber, right?” Peter asked, catching the fist the driver sent towards him, then sending a web into the face of the guy in the backseat. “Man, this isn’t great service.” Peter spent the next ten seconds dodging their fists and their bullets, before webbing the guy in the backseat into place and managing to send the driver out of the window and onto the sidewalk, where he became stuck in a cocoon of webs.

Peter, though not a great driver, knew at least where the brake was and slowed the car to a stop. He looked at the guy in the backseat.

“I’m gonna rate you one star, sorry. You really need to work on your customer service.”

Peter spent a moment to salute the cops who came running forward from their abandoned vehicles then swung off back into the night, asking Karen to unmute the call.

When he did, he heard all three of his friends in an unpleasant harmony, singing, “ _It’s the—EYE OF THE TIGER IT’S THE THRILL OF THE FIGHT-”_

“Peter,” Karen said in his other ear, voice dwarfed by how loud his friends were, “while they were on mute, your friends found an image of you travelling to the car chase on the Spider Watch Twitter account and decided to sing to encourage and support you.”

Peter laughed. “I feel very encouraged and supported.”

_“-AND THE LAST KNOWN SURVIVOR STRIKES HIS PREY IN THE NIGHT AND HE’S WATCHING IT ALL THROUGH THE EYEEEEEE—OF THE TIGER-”_

-

 

Peter watched the interview from the tower, Harley on the sofa beside him, leaning heavily on Peter’s shoulder, his legs thrown out haphazardly across the cushions, and Pepper sitting in the adjacent armchair.

Tony didn’t take a lot of interviews, so he only ever took big names when he did.

Jimmy Fallon introduced him with a wave of his hand and a standing ovation. A rock song played by the live band smothered the claps and Tony appeared from a door on the far left, his Interview Smile firmly in place and his arms wide to greet his audience.

When he was seated (while wearing a suit more expensive than the rent for Peter’s apartment), they started talking first about the most recent Iron Man mission that was public information. It happened about a month ago – a terror attack in Washington D.C. and Tony had been on Capitol Hill at the time, arguing about the Accords and the vanished Rogue Avengers. He’d swooped in to save the day and take out the gunners with brutal efficiency.

After a few generic questions about Iron Man ( _What’s your favourite suit so far? Have you ever peed in it?_ ), Fallon started on the real reason Tony had even accepted the interview in the first place.

“Pay attention,” Peter whispered, nudging Harley, who in turn rolled his eyes with a huff and ditched his phone on the cushions.

“So, let’s talk about _the boys_ ,” Jimmy said, gearing up for the questions. Tony shifted in his seat, probably running over the truths and the lies he’d have to tell. “We know their names to be Peter and Harley – they’ve been featured in a few of your Instagram photos, I have a few here-” Jimmy pulled out the black card-lined photos and the audience cooed over the photo of the boys in the lab with DUM-E, the one where they’re both in matching Iron Man hoodies in a selfie with Tony and the slightly blurry shot of the two of them, fast asleep across each other on the floor of their pillow fort (it was only blurry because Tony had been trying so hard to smother his laughter as he took it).

“Cute kids,” Jimmy complimented, lying the photos back down again.

“Wish I could take the credit,” Tony replied.

“So you can’t? There’s a lot of speculation that these two are yours-”

“No, no,” Tony said, smiling and waving the question away with his hand. “I get why people would assume, and even I’m not one hundred percent sure I didn’t father a kid during my messy playboy days, but I can tell you with certainty that those two are not biologically mine.”

Jimmy laughed over the playboy comment, then asked, “So how’d you meet them?”

“Ah, Harley and I met during the Mandarin fiasco in 2013,” Tony replied. “I was in Tennessee for a few days, I totally broke into his house and he was cool enough to help me out when my suit was busted. Smart kid, makes a great potato gun. I’ve had temporary guardianship of him for about six months?”

“Really?” Jimmy asked. Harley scoffed at the shocked look on his face and Peter stole a quick glance to see how Harley looked amused at the whole situation.

“Yeah, yeah – there’s better education opportunities for him here than there is in his hometown, and considering how bright he is, his mom just wanted the best for him. He’s a good kid. A little demon, for sure. He drops stuff like nobody’s business – just zones out and suddenly there’s a mug smashed on the floor – but really great.”

“And Peter? Does he live with you too?”

“No, but he’s a freeloader so he hangs out all the time.” The audience laughed with Tony, who shook his head. “No, no, I’m not going to say that – Pete’s possibly one of the kindest people to ever grace the planet. He’s super intelligent, really funny, probably the strongest moral backbone of anyone I’ve ever met.”

Peter tried to ignore how Harley was pointedly looking at him to watch his reaction. When he failed, he shoved the other boy, who devolved into laughter.

“So, I’m trying to picture it,” Jimmy said on screen. “You meet two random kids, and, what? You just start up a Dungeons and Dragons game with them?”

Tony laughed and Peter couldn’t tell how much of it was faked. Sometimes, Peter was pretty sure that Tony only laughed for real when he was with one of the five people Tony actually trusted. (Peter was endlessly sad that Tony could only count his friends on one hand, but he’d never tell anyone that.)

“They’re smart, Jimmy,” Tony said. “They’re the only two interns in SI history. We’ve got a mentorship kind of thing going on? I’m teaching them electrical engineering and they create their own projects – and sure, they have their own rooms and we watch bad movies and stuff, too-”

“Do you see them as your kids?”

Tony hesitated for all of a second. “Yeah,” he said, simply. “I look out for them. They look out for me. They’re family, you know? I don’t know if I’m ever going to have kids myself – with how my life goes that may not be a possibility – but I know that if that’s the case, I won’t lose sleep over it. I’ve already got two great kids and a robot that thinks he’s my son.”

No one in the living room of the tower’s penthouse looked at each other. Peter had no interest in seeing Pepper and Harley’s reactions, he just sunk further into the sofa, not bothering to hide the blinding smile on his face.

 

-

 

When Tony returned home the next day, Peter enveloped him in a hug that Tony rolled his eyes over.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I gather you watched the interview.”

Peter grinned as Tony held him back just as tight. “You’re our family too, you know.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Harley agreed, appearing from out of nowhere just to leap onto Tony’s back. Tony Stark grunted under the weight but Peter stayed put, holding him up with a slither of his super strength as Tony wrapped his arms around Harley’s legs to hold him in the piggyback.

“Not to get sentimental or anything, of course,” Harley said, his chin perched on Tony’s shoulder, “but you’re not half bad, you know?”

“Thanks,” Tony drawled. “I appreciate that.”

Pepper joined the embrace last, her arms winding around the three of them and Peter shifting one of his arms to include her in the hug.

“My boys,” she hummed.

They stayed in the hold for a moment, until Harley piped up with, “Hey, if I’m extra nice to you, can I have an allowance?”

Tony promptly dropped Harley on the ground.

 

-

 

An hour later, their embrace was posted on Tony’s Instagram, as caught by FRIDAY.

Pepper Potts in her sleek, beautiful dress, her arms carefully wound around Peter Parker and Harley Keener, who gripped to Tony Stark like koalas, while the billionaire himself, the make-shift father of this make-shift family, grinned in the centre.

The caption read: _thank god for twenty-four hour security cameras._

Only ten minutes after, Peter posted the clip from a few seconds later, as Tony dropped Harley and the four of them broke out into loud, wonderful laughter.

The caption read: _thank god indeed_

**Author's Note:**

> THANK YOU FOR READING I SUPER APPRECIATE IT  
> pretty pretty please talk to me in the comments - tell me if you'd like to see this as a series or what kind of shenanigans the boys could get up to! thank you so much!
> 
> notes:  
> \- i highly believe in a universe in which they're all d&d nerds okay (but maybe this is because i am a d&d nerd)  
> \- harley's half orc fighter aerelm is named after aerelm harda, the wonderful half elf paladin my buddy billy played in our campaign  
> \- shmaptain shamerica   
> \- if i make this into a series i'm absolutely addressing harley nailing his guess on where bruce banner is  
> \- ironmom is my fave ok  
> \- if we're taking tony at his word, he has in fact peed in the iron man suit (iron man 2) and that's what i hate most about him as a person


End file.
